Thursday, 12 April 2012

Yes yes, I know, it's been a while, but time flies when you're interning at the Niagara Falls Humane Society. Yes, that's right - my co-workers are cats. I can feel your jealousy seeping through the screen. It really is the purrrrfect setup for a katzendame: my "office" is a couch in the Meow Mansion, where I sit with my laptop and the resident cats up for adoption. They rub and play and sleep around me, inhibiting my work and making my life that much sweeter than yours.

*Sigh* I sure will miss this place once my time here is up. It's not all Fancy Feast and belly rubs though. Spending every weekday with these cats naturally creates an immense bond between us, so seeing them go is tough, but clearly the objective of the shelter. They would all be happier in forever homes. Which is why I think it's time for another adoption profile. This week:

Achillies the Shy Guy

I feel compelled to write about Achilles because he has had a rough time in the last little while. He came from a loving home with an elderly man who passed away. He was adopted once, but because he was severely attacked by the resident cat of that house, he was brought back here. He's been recovering emotionally ever since. According to the other volunteers, Achilles used to be very outgoing, and didn't scare as easily as he does now. He's such a sweet sweet boy and we know that he has it in him to be trusting again. When everyone else is asleep, I see his head poking out of his little house. I motion for him to sneak over my way, and he comes and fluffs and dances around while I scratch his back lightly. He has such a sweet soft meow, barely existent. And his little pink lips tend to smile now and then - I wish I saw it more. I know he craves attention, but is nervous when the other cats are around. His self esteem has been a bit deflated by everything that's gone on, but all he needs is a loving family to pump him up and make him feel special again.

If you'd like to come visit Achilles and me, come to the shelter at 6025 Chippawa Parkway in Niagara Falls. I'll give him a nice brushing and make sure he's ready for you.

Sunday, 18 March 2012

A certain wabbit informed me of this lovely man he met in Ottawa a few years ago. After a quick Google search, I realised that others have taken notice of the Cat Man. Have a gander at this article written about him in 2008 in the Ottawa Metro:

It’s a sunny afternoon at the western edge of Parliament Hill and René Chartrand is swinging a curly-haired toddler through the air. The boy and his father came here to look at the dozen cats who live in view of our nation’s capitol buildings.

They’re finding out the so-called Cat Man is possibly more entertaining than his feline charges.

Chartrand, although 86 years old, finds the energy to take a 10-minute bus ride most days to feed the cats, do maintenance on their homes and both chat and play with the hundreds of visitors who stop by every day. He arrives at two in the afternoon and stays until past five.

He rarely misses a day, although snow sometimes keeps him from leaving his downtown apartment, where he has seven cats of his own. “I cannot live without a cat,” he says. “I’ve always loved them.”

The descendants of the cat colony worked inside the Parliament Buildings doing natural pest control until chemicals took over their job in the 1950s. Put outside, they were cared for by various hill staff until, in the 1970s, a local woman named Irene Desormeaux gave them food and some boxes to live in. Chartrand began helping out.

In 1987, Desormeaux died and Chartrand took over. The former lumber mill worker and house painter, who is originally from nearby Hull, took his volunteer duties seriously. He built condos out of wood for the cats, got them vet care and lavished them with attention.

Chartrand set up a donation box, which helps offset — but doesn’t always fully cover —the $6,000 it costs to care for these cats every year. Donated cat food and vet care (they get a check-up and shots every year) help, too.
In recent years, a group of eight local residents has begun helping Chartrand. They come early in the morning with food and when he arrives at two, he feeds them again (if he doesn’t make it, everyone knows they’ve eaten for sure). They help with things like the shoveling.

They’re also consciously letting the cat colony peter out. A few years ago, there were 28 cats, now just a dozen remain. When people drop kittens on the hill or a new stray comes into the group, they bring it to the local Humane Society for adoption (or take it in themselves — everyone involved in this project has a couple felines at home).

None of them sees themselves as Chartrand’s successor in this job: He’s the one who knows both official languages and who effortlessly acts as cat ambassador as well as cat lover. “Taking care of these cats is all I have to do. I’m in love with them.”

Apparently, the Cat Man retired in 2009, but his legacy in the Parliment Cats lives on through a team of devoted volunteers. I can only hope to someday be in a position where I can do exactly what this man has done with his life. Wake up with some cats, go help some cats, come home to some cats. How wonderful...

Sunday, 4 March 2012

While trolling the internet for cat news (as I frequently do), I came across
this lovely little article from The SUN entitled"HUNGRY cat Mime snubs Chinese grub for posh nosh — by gatecrashing WINDSOR CASTLE for lunch".

Every day, the cheeky black and white moggy walks the 50 yards across the cobbled street from the restaurant where she lives.

She then strolls past armed cops and guardsmen to the Queen's apartments, where staff feed her along with the royal corgis.

Sunday, 26 February 2012

When I entered the Niagara Falls Humane Society's Adoption Centre in Niagara Square, it was difficult to not get lost in the mews and purrs of a dozen or so lovely and unique felines. But I was on a mission.I approached one of the volunteers and told them I was looking for a very specific cat. "Please show me the cat that has been here the longest," I asked, "the one who deserves a home so much but just hasn't caught a break."
The woman caught eyes with another volunteer and smiled.
"Lionheart" they both said in unison.
I was lead to an area known as the "Scaredy Cat" room, where cats go to escape their shelter-mates and have some peace and quiet. There, on a recycled ottoman, an orange cat lay sleeping.
"Lionheart" the woman called softly.

I could hardly keep myself from snatching him up, but the "no picking up the cats" policy forced me to simply have a seat on the floor beside him and squeal.

"Don't be fooled by his being in this room" said the woman, "he's no scaredy-cat. He just likes the ottoman."

Lionheart wiggled around, eventually getting to his feet. It was then I realized how round and tubby he was, and let loose another squeal. I LOVE fat cats. There we sat smiling at each other until he lunged forward and butt my face with his. How lovely.

We sat for a good long while, just rubbing faces, while the volunteer told me what little they knew about this sweet old man-cat. Lionheart came from the streets some time in November, and has become fat and happy while waiting for someone to take him home. I found it so boggling that this cat had been at the shelter for nearly 4 months and not been adopted. His temperament was absolutely heart-melting.

If you're interested visiting this gentle giant, pop over to the Adoption Center at Niagara Square, located at 7555 Montrose Rd in Niagara Falls.

Sunday, 19 February 2012

This week, I’m doing something a little different. My mother’s
birthday is coming up, and seeing as she is a major Katzendame like me, I’m
considering a cat-related gift.

Upon searching, I came across a self-cleaning litterbox. Now,
I don’t know if any of you have ever seen one of these things in action, but it’s
a pretty neat concept. There seem to be a few different models, each baring a
different pricetag.

But aside from the fact that there seem to be homemade videos of each of these models failing miserably, my concern is more to do with the cats themselves. In my search for truth and knowledge of these robo-rakers, I came across multiple videos of cats freaking out over these intruders.

I find the idea of making my cat uncomfortable far more troublesome than the price tag on these things, but in understand that many people are squeamish and would do practically anything to eliminate the whole procedure from their lives. My questions is this though: should we invest so much money in a thing that has our cats on edge, just because we want one less thing to do? Or should we accept that scooping is part of the responsibility of having a cat, and allow them to continue pooping freely without the fear of their litter box eating them? I understand that some cats warm up to the box and it is not an issue, but why should we even put them through that process? Cats don't ask for much in this world, just food in the bowl and litter in the box and a trip to the vet should they require it, and after all the love and joy they bring to our lives, isn't scooping a little poop the least we can do?

Sunday, 12 February 2012

"The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow
separately without growing apart.” – Elisabeth Foley

This is Bunnalinkyla.

She is our 16-year-old
Siamese, and as far as anyone is concerned, a mean old biddy.

Her deep-blue eyes
are frosted with cataracts and her graceful and agile dance has deteriorated to
a clumsy, cautious shuffle. She bumps into walls, howls at the ceiling fan, and
generally bumbles about with the dexterity of a newborn.

But Bunna was once
the boss.

She’s always done exactly what she wanted. Why, about 10 years
ago, Bunna decided she didn’t want to live with us and our (at the time) 7
other cats. Who could blame her? A feline as regal as she deserved the
attention and praise of a thousand humans, just as her Egyptian predecessors
had. So, one day, Bunna moved down the road to live with Fritz, an elderly
German bachelor with a modest peach orchard and a penchant for loose cigarettes.
For a decade, these two unlikely friends were inseparable. Even into his
90’s Fritz could be seen tending to his land, Bunna somewhere
within earshot, howling freely. At night, Fritz would sit smoking his cigarettes
and watching his shows, and Bunna would be perched on his lap in a cloud of smoke,
smiling through her spider-leg whiskers.

When Fritz died, a good friend of his showed up at our door, asking
if we`d like our cat back. “He’d always said to just put her down when he
passed- I mean, who wants a loud-mouthed, mostly-blind senior Siamese cat?”

So, needless to say, Bunna is back.

Older, grayer, and a little less graceful, but in so many ways,
exactly as I remember her.

I drove past Fritz’s farm house
nearly every day, and I would always slow down and watch for Bunna, even call
for her sometimes. Despite how I missed her, I was not intending to snatch her up and take her back home. I knew she and Fritz needed each other, and I would never want to rob
them of happiness. My intention was just to make sure she was alright, and give
her anything she needed.

Always have an open door for your loved ones. Be open, be supportive, and live with a sincere wish in your heart that the ones you love will find their place, even if it's not with you. They may travel far,
(or perhaps just down the lane), and they may be gone for a long time. They
may return old and gray, weathered and downtrodden, blind and cranky. But, the
ones you love should always feel they have a place in your life, no matter
where their’s may lead them.

Sunday, 5 February 2012

Stress is an ignorant state.
It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important.

-Natalie Goldberg

Scrambles, chillin.

For the last hour, Scrambles has been switching back and
forth between napping and cleaning himself. Because he is quite fat, he tends
to miss some spots. I see him rolling and flopping around like a beached
fish, struggling to get his little pink tongue to reach those spots. Then, with
a resounding sigh of “meh”, he plops back down and takes a nap.

Scrambles doesn’t stress; he knows that in time, everything
will get clean, even if he has to get Liono or Little Cat to help him.
Everything that needs to be done will be. Now, this doesn’t mean that Scrams is
lazy; he’s always bookin’ it around the neighbourhood, keeping a watchful eye
on Pleasant Ave. However, he also understands that things take time, and taking time for himself is
just as important.

In watching this mildly hilarious flopping routine, I came to the
realization that lately I’ve been allowing myself to get heavy with my troubles,
and denying myself time for reflection.

So, I have decided that today, I say “NO” to stress.

Of course, many of you are saying “HAH! If only it was that
easy...”

But, in reality, it is.

We are faced with countless choices every day: what we wear,
what we eat, how much money we spend and on what, what people we surround
ourselves with, whether we go to work or school or stay home, whether to skip
town and join the circus or steer our cars into the opposing lane and end it
all...

We may think of these choices as obvious because they are
innate and subconscious, but they still shape your lives. So why then, can we
not make saying no to stress another one of these obvious choices? Can we not
train ourselves- just as I, a lactose intolerant-ee, have trained myself to
avoid dairy products- to denounce stress from our lives? Of course, I tend to
fall off the wagon sometimes, and scarf a bowl of ice cream, but I never feel good afterwards. The same can be said about stress. We have
been conditioned by society to think that it is just a natural part of the
human experience, and we just have to learn to deal with it, but do we ever
feel any rewards from it?

The masters of relaxation.

I believe that while we most certainly will all encounter
stressful situations and relationships in our lives, allowing stress to permeate
your mind is a choice, and how deeply and how long we allow it to affect us is
completely our decision.

Scrambles could roll around all day, getting frustrated at
the areas he can’t reach and the vastness of his rotund belly. He could get
worked up and feel down about himself, looking at the other cats and seeing how
effortlessly they clean themselves, and allow himself to feel inferior and
stressed. Or, he could just take a nap, and go on loving himself. He knows that
we will certainly continue loving him regardless.

So now, I think I’ll have a bowl of dairy-free ice cream, let
my belly hang out, and take a nap with Scrams. And I won’t feel guilty for
doing it.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non essentials.

I love their little quirks and eccentricities - like an obsession for licking patio stones, scarfing butter with both paws, or being slinky on the stairs(link to come!). You can identify a Katzendame (German for Cat Lady) by her ability to rattle off (in detail) these strange habits of all her furry children, and her expression of overwhelming joy as she does so. Potentially for hours.

She may also have specific songs she sings to them, which they in turn, coo and mrow along with. Like, "Do the Bearcat" to Smokey Bear, or some operatic rendition of "Baby Got Back" to Tiny Baby. (Yes, I do this. Loudly.)

Now you may be saying to yourself, "This woman is clearly a few kittens short of a litter, why should I listen to these delusional rants?"

To that I say:.....

........ well, nothing. I'm not here to convince you of my sanity, but merely show you how sunny life can be on the "crazy" and furrier side of this fence. It's no secret that animal companionship provides benefits far beyond the warm and fuzzy. Studies have shown that having a pet can lower your blood pressure, reduce stress, and improve healing. Pet owners are also more likely to pull through when faced with a serious illness or health issue (such as a heart attack).

Although pertinent, these facts are not why I have pets. I feel there is something so pure about our animal relationships. Think of all the drama you encounter with other humans. Think of the stress and anxiety these relationships sometimes put on you. There are so many negative and complicated emotions that come with human relationships, and while this complexity is part of their appeal, it can also be... well, frustrating.

Betrayal, secrecy, manipulation, spite, hatred - these things do not exist with animals.

There is a quote from Mark Twain that I think sums is up quite perfectly:

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."

Nothing done by an animal is done with malicious or vindictive intent. When a dog pees on your rug, it is not because he likes to see you angered. When a cat scratches at your drapes, it is not because it is part of a larger, intricate plan to make your husband leave you. When your ferret hisses at or bites you, know that she is not trying to swindle you out of 50 bucks. When you feed and brush and nurse and fully love your animal, you can be sure that the only thing you will receive in return is reciprocated love and gratitude. A lick on the nose, a rub on your leg, a smile through the whiskers.

Now, some of you may still be rolling your eyes, but the Katzendames and other pet lovers are nodding their heads. They know this pure and simple love, and its ability to stretch like a freshly woken tabby into the corners of our lives and change the way we view the world. They show us why simple love is the best love. Not just with animals, but with everything and everyone in our lives.

So perhaps instead of the regular rigmarole of pet toy reviews and LOLCATS pictures (although there is certainly a time and place for both, and they may make appearances here if the situation calls for it), we will use this blog as a place of celebration for the simple love our animals bring to us, and the lessons we can learn from them.

Also, in attempts to provide each furry-burry with an opportunity to find their destined human companion, I will use this blog as an adoption hub, and will feature profiles on animals from shelters, foster houses, barns- where ever they are- in order to give them a voice. Maybe the right person will hear it.

Who is this chick?

I am a singing, yoga-doing, trumpet-playing animal enthusiast with a passion for writing and...well, cats. My whole life I have always had at least 1 pet hanging around, and consider myself a whisperer of feline friends. I am a Public Relations student at Niagara College with hopes of using my new skills for animal advocacy. My name is Laurel Minnes, and I am the Katzendame.